Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-09-10
A Dream of Heaven and a Reunited
Family.
"woMAN' OPPORTUNITY"

'WoMAN > OffORIUNIIl
The HAMPToNs, Aug. 28.--"Woman's
Opportunity" ras the subject of dis
course by the Rev. L. Dewitt Talmage,
ID. d., to-day; and his text a
$50 God created man In his own image, the
image of Gcd created He him; male and
female created He them.''--Genesis 1. q.
The following is the sermon in full:
In other words, God, who can make
no mistake, made man and woman for
q specific work, and TO move in par
ticular spheres--man to be regnant in
his realm; woman TO be dominant in
hers. The boundary line between Italy
and Switzerland, between England and
Scotland. is not more thoroughly
marked than this distinction between
the empire masculine and the empire
feminine. So entirely dissimilar are
the fields to which God called them,
that you can no more compare them
than you can oxygen and hydrogen,
water and grass, trees and stars. All
this talk about the superiority of one
sex to the other sex IS an everlasting
waste Of ink and speech. A ieweler
may have a scale so delicate that he
can weigh the dust of diamonds; but
where are the scales so delicate that
you can weigh in them affection against
affection, sentiment against sentiment,
thought against thought, soul against
soul, a mans world against o woman's
woridP You come out with your
rtercotyped remark, the man is
superior to woman in intellect; and
then | opon on my desk the
swarthy, %iron-typed thunderbolt writ
ings of
HARRIET MARTINEAU,
and Elizabeth Browning and George
Eliot. You come on with your stereo-
typed remark about pms superiority
to man in the item of affection; but l
ask you where was there more capacity
TO love than in John the disciple, and
Robert McCheyne the Scotchman, and
John Symmetrical the Methodist, and
Henry Martin the missionary The
heart Of those men Was SO large, that
after you had rolled into it two hemis-
pheres, there was room still left to
marshal the hosts of heaven, and set
up the throne of the eternal Jehovah.
I deny to man the throne intellectual.
l deny to woman the throne a%ffectional.
No human phraseoiogy will ever de-
fine the sheres, while there is an intui-
ton by which we know when a man is
in his realm, and when a woman is in
her realm, and when either Of them is
out of it. No bungling legislature
ought to attempt to make a definition,
or to say: This is the line and that
is the line" .'My theory is that if a
woman wants to vote, she ought to
vote, and that il a man wants to en-
broider and keep house, he ought TO
he allowed to embroIder and keep
house. There are masculine women
and there are effeminate men. My
theory is, that you have no right to in
terfere with any ones doing anything
that is righteous. Albany and Wash
ington might as well decree by legisla-
ton how high a brownthrush should
fly, or how deep trout should plunge,
as to try to seek out the height o. the
depth of woman's duty. The question
of capacity will settle finally the whole
question, the whole subject. When a
woman is prepared to preach, she will
preach, and neither
CONFERENCE o PREsBYTERY
can hinder her. When a woman is pre-
pared to move in the highest CONNER
cial spheres, she will have great influ-
ence on the exchange, and no boards OF
trade can hinder her. ! want woman
to understand that heart and brain can
overly any barrier that politicians
may set up. and that nothing can keep
her back or keep her down but the
question of incapacity.
There are women, l know, of most
undesirable nature, who wander up
and down The country-having no
home of their own. or forsaking their
own homes-talking about their rights;
and we know very well that they them
selves ars fit neither to vete, nor fit to
keep house. Their mission seems to
be to hnmiiiate the two sexes at the
thought of what any one of US might
become. No one would want to live
under the laws that such women would